


lapsus linguae

by astersandstuffs



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Minor Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-16 00:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14152542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astersandstuffs/pseuds/astersandstuffs
Summary: “I’m literally your best friend,” Matsukawa says.Takahiro pauses. “Shit. You’re right.”





	lapsus linguae

At the end of afternoon practice, they’ve procured a spot just for the two of them on the bench next to an assortment of Seijou-themed sports bags. Matsukawa’s taken a seat between Takahiro’s legs, convinced that the floor is blissfully cooler, and winces a little when Takahiro rouses enough to pull at his hair.

“Why’s your hair this wavy?” Takahiro asks. He curls the oily, clumped strands around his fingers and tugs once more, the slightest bit gentler.

“Hmm. You’re gross,” Matsukawa observes, pointing out their post-practice state, all overheated and sweaty and teenage boy-smell. Takahiro has both hands in Matsukawa’s hair.

He shrugs. “I’ve got nothing to lose right now,” he says, because they’ve been lounging on the sidelines for a while, breathing, cooling down, stretching too-long and aching limbs, their cleanup duties left to the adorably terrified first years for as long as they can get away with it. Oikawa shows no mercy even at practice matches, but they’ll get him back later with every teasing remark.

Hands push down on Matsukawa’s head in a futile attempt to flatten his hair, and it feels a tad gross, yeah, but it lets Matsukawa peer up at his bangs. “Look at this mess. Is this even Japanese?”

“Really? You asking that, pink-head?”

“ _Mauve_ ,” Takahiro corrects flatly. “It’s mauve, you uncultured beanpole.”

“That’s still fucking weird, though.”

“You just can’t handle me.”

“I’m literally your best friend,” Matsukawa says.

Takahiro pauses. Matsukawa Issei hates every figurative use of the word _literally_ , preferring his own more creative methods of exaggerating. (Oh, what a nerd.) “Shit. You’re right.”

“Hmm-mm. Now that I know how gross you are, I may need to find a new best friend.”

“Yeah?” Takahiro plays along, teases, his eyes a mirror of Matsukawa’s half-lidded ones and his voice uneventful. “Who, Iwaizumi?”

“He _does_  always beat you in arm-wrestling.” At Takahiro’s mock-gasp of betrayal, Matsukawa lifts a hand and starts to tick off his fingers. “Strong, responsible, doesn’t need to be fed a cream puff every Monday and Thursday, non-mutant hair...”

They raise their combined stare to judge the _best friend to-be_ : as Oikawa keeps flirting with his fangirls, Iwaizumi glares daggers at the back of his head and strangles the poor volleyball he was about to throw in the storage cart, as if he’s considering whether insults or a projectile will yank Oikawa’s metaphorical ponytail better.

Takahiro quirks a brow and knows Matsukawa can hear it in his voice. “You sure ‘bout that?”

Matsukawa sighs, rueful, and leans more against Takahiro’s leg. “I might be an asshole, but I’m not enough of that to steal someone else’s man.”

“Guess we’re stuck with each other,” Takahiro confirms, ruffling Matsukawa’s hair out of the deformed shallot he’s sculpted it into. He cards his fingers through the muggy and silken tangles. He adjusts his technique until Matsukawa lets slip a throaty, satisfied noise. He feels the rumble of it crawl up the knee Matsukawa is using as a pillow. “Besides, your ass is mine,” he tells him.

In the sudden hush between them, Takahiro can hear a deflated volleyball dropped on the other side of the gym, feel the rapid _thump-thump-thump_ of sneakers slapping the parquet floor as Iwaizumi chases Oikawa ‘round as usual, and maybe it’s all just the beat of Matsukawa’s heart as his chest is pressed against Takahiro’s shin. He feels his cheeks go warm; he feels Matsukawa’s neck heat up from where it’s rested on the curve of his knee, sweat sticking their skin together.

“Wait—”

“Did you just—”

Matsukawa laughs quietly and without fanfare. Takahiro knows, and he perches his hands on the other’s shoulders and catches every last of it.

“You sound like a dying cat,” he gasps out, bent over his best friend and dying of laughter himself.

“Gross, ‘Hiro. You’re a gross, gross old man.”

“I was aiming for _‘yeah, but you’re my asshole’_. Like, ya know, when we call those two our idiots.”

“That doesn’t sound any better!”

“Hey, it’s not a dirty joke unless you think it is.”

Matsukawa tucks a grin against Takahiro’s knee, not unlike a kiss, and tugs his arms closer until he can hug them because he’s got at least one more similar trait to koalas other than the laziness. 

In time, Takahiro frees one hand and runs it through Matsukawa’s hair, mapping out in his mind the treasure spots that reward him with a sated hum, a sleepy purr, and lets themselves be.


End file.
